THE GREAT FOOTBALL GIVEAWAY
May/June 2006
By Paul Clarke
CHAPTER 1
Ok. So here we go. Tomorrow we leave for Malawi. And boy are we excited.
I'm remembering back to this time eight weeks ago. It was just an idea. "Let's take a suitcase of footballs to Malawi". Having just shipped a full container load of thousands of balls, I feel an odd mix of pride in achieving what we have done so far, and nerves. We have promised thousands of people that we will deliver balls, on their behalf, to children in one of the world's poorest countries.
There are still so many hurdles to overcome - we'll have our ups & downs, but the thought of seeing so many kids enjoying themselves, kicking around footballs that they would not have otherwise had, is motivation enough.
As I sit here now, in the comfort of my own home, there's one little thing I'm really looking forward to. After all this is over, I can't wait to sit on my sofa, crack open a beer and tune into England vs Paraguay in the World Cup, feeling that in some small way I, as well as everyone that has given us a ball to take with us, deserve to enjoy it.
We are not charity workers. Nor are we doctors, engineers, priests, politicians. Sarah and I are just two Londoners who love football, had an idea, and are making it happen.
What fun.
Paul
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CHAPTER2
It's been a long day. It started at about 4am when I first woke up too excited to sleep. This has been a theme to the start of my days recently.
It feels as though one chapter is closing and another is beginning. Today we fly to Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, to give their children thousands of footballs. It's really quite bizarre.
I have no idea what to expect. We think they will welcome us - everyone has been pretty friendly to date. Everyone seems to want footballs.
But it's a strange feeling going somewhere so unknown. Most of the schools and orphanages that we will visit don't have telephones, or emails. You can't just go online to find out directions. You can't just text them to ask what time would suit them best. We have all become so dependent on the technology around us, that it's rare that you ever get the chance to not know where you're going anymore.
Ever since we first had this idea, the same little niggly thought has worried me. How? How are we actually going to distribute the balls? How are we going to make sure that the footballs people have given us, actually get into the hands (or feet) of the children in Malawi? It may be that we are very naïve in our approach. A part of me thinks it will be OK to just rock up and say "Hey. Anyone under the age of 16 want a football? Please form an orderly queue."
No, of course it won't be like that. But it raises the question, how do we do it. Clearly we cannot drive our lorry into a small town, open up the back of the container and start giving away footballs. Bedlam would ensue.
Whilst we have tried to make this feel like a big event over here (the name The Great Football Giveaway" has a sense of scale and event to it), over there we will be very discrete. That was of course until The Minister of Youth Sport & Culture in Malawi called us. We have his full support, but I'm worried that if things start becoming too 'official' the beaurocracy might hinder us rather than help. We are due to meet with the Minister on Monday so we'll see.
At the moment we're on the plane. The jumbo is struggling slightly with the weight of Sarah's bag, but the pilot is confident we should reach Johannesburg in about nine hours. From Jo'burg we fly to Blantyre in Malawi.
We have only been to Malawi once before. I would like to say that the last time we were here we travelled the country, absorbing the local culture and experiencing life through Malawian eyes. But that would be a lie. We stayed in very privileged places and rarely stepped foot outside the gates of the various hotels that we stayed in.
The only real time we did, was when we went to watch a game of football between two local village sides. There was a carnival atmosphere - hundreds of people had turned up, mainly kids, and two teams of eleven battled it out for the prize of victory. This was football stripped of all its marketing. There were no sponsors, no advertising hoardings, no photographers lining the touchlines (apart from Sarah and her digital camera). It wasn't like the Sunday League football I play. We have never had more than three people turn up to watch us and here there were hundreds (or was it thousands?).
They had a ball. Not a great ball, but nevertheless a ball. They had to stop every now and then to pump it up, but it was round and it served its job. But what struck us more than anything were all the other handmade footballs that the children had made, from bits of plastic bag and rubber tied together with string. It was at this point that we thought "next time we come let's bring a suitcase of brand new footballs for the children here". OK, so that suitcase has become a container load, but I've never been one for doing things by halves...
So as day drifts into night and night drifts into day we look forward to the unknown adventure that awaits us. After a cat nap on the plane, we will wake up in Malawi.
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CHAPTER 3
Blantyre has won my heart. Before I came here I thought it would be one of those cities that I would just want to get out of. Why be surrounded by urban chaos, when minutes away lie the open arms of the Malawian countryside? After all, what I have left behind is London, the capital of western hustle & bustle.
But there is something about Blantyre that is so refreshing. It's difficult to put your finger on it, but I think it's something to do with it being a frantically busy city but where the people are friendly, helpful and calm. In my experience of busy cities, these qualities aren't often found together. It's chaos here of course, but it comes with a smile.
Blantyre is small. We thought we were lost the other day, but one left turn, followed by a quick right and we were home. There is not much here - the commercial centre is one or two roads that heave in the way you might expect African cities to heave.
The government has recently embarked on a program to clear all the street vendors off the streets. The vendors had previously set up camp at a spot near our lodge (a road equivalent to London's A1), which seemed like an odd & dangerous choice. But the talk here is that it is a much cleaner place now the problem has been 're-located' somewhere out of view. The reaction has been mixed. Some say it's a good thing, others find it inconvenient that they now have to go an effortsome kilometer into town to get their groceries. And I don't suppose anyone has asked the vendors themselves what they think.
Anyway, I'm glad I've spent enough time to get to know Blantyre. We have been conscious to try and immerse ourselves in the culture of the place. We're realising that our football project is an opportunity not just to visit a country, but to really get to the heart of it.
Football is so much more than just a game. It's been extraordinary to see what doors have opened up because of what we're doing. Some of them reveal quite awe inspiring, yet tragic rooms.
We met with the Malawian FA (Football Association). We thought it would be an appropriate thing to do, but were conscious not to let our project become someone else's agenda. We wanted to introduce ourselves and then leave.
I have mixed feelings about the FA in England. On the one hand they had been quite helpful to us in England, on the other hand they had only been 'quite' helpful. Given that Malawi is one of the FA's priority partner countries, I had rather assumed that the English FA would wholeheartedly embrace what we're doing and actively want to assist us. But no, in England things don't really work that way and the general mix of 'too-busyness' and other things being more important, meant that the English FA did nothing proactive to assist us.
A short rant if you'll permit me (skip on if you don't want to listen). A few days before we left for Malawi I got a phone call from the FA. Months ago, Mitre, official ball suppliers to the FA, had very kindly given us a full page ad to run in the programme of the FA Cup final. Brilliant. This worked with our timings and could lead to loads more balls to give to kids in Malawi before the World Cup. The FA called me when they saw the ad, to say that the ad could not run because The Great Football Giveaway was not one of the FA's official charities. A whiff of corporate guidelines was in the air. I calmly pointed out that Malawi is a partner country of the FA and they should be doing everything possible to support our project. Equally I pointed out that we would be visiting SOS Children's Villages in Malawi anyway (one of their 'official charities') and the more balls we could get to give them the better. They insisted we remove our logo from the ad and made it look like an ad for Mitre rather than an appeal for people to give balls. It was either that or not run the ad at all. By now I was boarding the plane for Malawi, so I had no choice. Pathetic. I'm sorry FA, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Cut to the Malawian FA. We walk through the door and within minutes we are sitting in a room with the General Secretary, the Head of Operations and the Director of their Urban Development programmes. All of them hugely welcoming and fully supportive of what we are doing. The President wasn't in the office that day, but had he been there he would have joined us in that room too. In 20 minutes we had achieved more with the Malawian FA then we did in 8 weeks with the English FA.
We mentioned to the Malawian FA that we wanted to deliver our footballs direct to children that would most benefit from them. This wasn't an organised and structured 'programme' that we had spent years developing, backed up by reports, studies, surveys, research, and all the usual inefficient ways we westerners like to be efficient. This was just us, a couple of Londoners who have brought a whole load of footballs over to Malawi to give to children that look like they might enjoy them.
The Malawian FA suggested we visit some of their urban development schemes, which the following day we did.
Patrick runs 'Playsoccer'. He is an immediate source of inspiration. He gets his hands dirty, by going out into the hearts of the poorest communities of Blantyre and amidst the chaos arranges opportunities for thousands of children to learn to play football. This keeps them off the streets and out of trouble. They learn social skills, teamwork and dropped into the programme is education about key issues such as HIV. But above all the kids have fun.
Patrick took us to Bangwe. A district that opens your eyes to the reality of urban African life. They say you can never be prepared for how you feel when you first walk through a truly poor township. And they are right.
At first you've seen it all before. Most days our televisions beam pictures at us showing hardship across the world and when we've had enough, we turn over to watch the Holiday programme and dream of our next sun kissed beach. And then you realise that this isn't television and that those faces peering through the windows of mud huts with tin roofs aren't news stories, but they are real people. And then it hits you like a train. Anger, disbelief, embarrassment, shame, all momentarily combine forces to punch you in the stomach.
I turned to Sarah, but surprisingly she was smiling. What she saw was something very different. She saw the smiles, the kids playing in the streets, the effort that the ladies had made to dress as smartly as they could.
We were both right to feel they way we did. This was a poor place but a happy one.
I will never forget that journey into the heart of the Bangwe township (or district, as they call it here). And more importantly I will never forget walking into the small haven, slap bang in the middle of one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest countries in the world, and seeing thousands of children having fun kicking balls about.
The tragedy was that despite receiving funding from the US for this programme, they only had twelve balls to play with. If I had our lorry filled with balls parked outside, I would have just opened the back and walked away. We return next Saturday with footballs. I can't wait.
I knew that demand would massively outstrip supply, even if we had a million footballs to give away. How people must feel when it comes to distributing food or medical supplies at time of humanitarian crisis, I shudder to think.
But would we have any footballs at all to give? Next stop, the infamous Malawi Revenue Authority.
Probably the heaviest item of luggage in our bags is the paperwork we have prepared for the MRA. Documents signed by this person, faxes sent by that person, emails printed out in triplicate from everyone and anyone that might be able to help.
We were chancing our luck. It was a Friday afternoon and we were hoping to catch an official in a good mood before the weekend. We pushed back the Customs & Finance door, expecting to see a thousand people arguing about how unfairly they've been treated, and it was quiet. Two ladies sat calmly staring into the weekend ahead.
I waited until one of them caught my eye, and smiled. Good start.
It wasn't that she didn't want to help, just that she wasn't going to volunteer to help. The good news was that she had a file with some paperwork in it, marked "The Great Football Giveaway". I recognised some of the bits of paper - inventory lists, shipping contracts, and on top of all if them was our trump card: the letter from the Minister. Our pair of scissors, especially sharpened to cut red tape.
"Oh, you have a letter from the honourable Minister. Yes, this should help".
Should? Should! It better.
She didn't want to make any of the twenty calls that I made her make that Friday afternoon to find the piece of paper that said we could have our container of footballs.
Eventually we tracked it down. It was waiting for the personal signature and stamp of the Chief Financial Controller of the MRA. Was this a good sign or a bad sign? She didn't want to call his office, but I politely made her. We were so close to getting our balls - I could almost smell the synthetic leather.
"He's in a conference". "Until Monday".
It was a similar feeling to earlier this year when Luton were 3-1 up against Liverpool at half time in the FA Cup. And lost 5-3. My heart sank. So near, but yet so inevitably far.
I received a phone call that day from Mr Justin Saidi, Director of Sport in Malawi, inviting us to come to an international match between a club side from Malawi and a team from neighbouring Mozambique. The Minister of Youth Sport & Culture would be there and this would be a good opportunity for us to meet him.
The game was taking place in Mulanje, a district in the south west of the country, about an hour's drive from Blantyre.
The football pitch at Mulanje is arguably one of the most beautiful places in the world. People that have travelled the world will I'm sure say there are more spectacular places, but my vote, for today, goes with the Mulanje football pitch.
Sat at the base of a table top mountain, Mulanje football pitch is enclosed on three sides by trees. The fourth side is an open view of the mountain. The English would love to build a cricket pitch here and quaff their Pimms as the sun sets alongside the mountain. But this is football and it is real. Hundreds of people line the touchlines, using the trees as their stands. Children play with home-made footballs, engineered from bits of plastic bag and rubber tied together with string. A local DJ blares music out and the crowds dance on the touchlines. The atmosphere is alive with excitement, fun and enjoyment.
At this point Sarah has one of her usual brilliantly perceptive thoughts. It's not us that should be helping Malawi, it's Malawi that should be helping us. If we were at a football match in England, by now we would probably have suffered the ritual abuse of being sworn at, spat at and had our mothers insulted - because that's what we do in England. And we are so proud to be so civilised.
There is an air of expectation about the Minister's arrival in Mulanje. Everyone has turned out to see him (or were they just there for the football? Probably both) - the local MP, the Director of Southern Regions football, the President of Malawi FA, the Director of Sport, and on the list went. And then little old us. These funny English people who have brought a container load of footballs for the children of Malawi.